The Concept of Political Difference in Oliver Marchart and its Relationship with the Heideggerian Concept of Ontological Difference
Journal Title: Conatus - Journal of Philosophy - Year 2019, Vol 4, Issue 1
Abstract
The concept of political difference addresses the distinction between politics and the political. The political refers to the ontological making possible of the various domains of society, including the domain of politics in a narrow sense. Political difference was introduced as a reaction to the theoretical controversy between foundationalism and anti-foundationalism. This reaction took the form of post-foundationalism. According to Marchart, post-foundationalism does not entirely deny the possibility of grounding. It only denies the possibility of an ultimate transcendent foundation insofar as this ontological impossibility makes possible the historical and contingent grounds in plural. The Heideggerian concept of ontological difference also undermines the possibility of an ultimate ontic ground, which establishes the presence of all other beings. If one wants to think beyond the concept of ground, one should obtain a clear understanding of Being as Being, namely one should grasp the difference between Being and beings. All the same, Heidegger tends to replace the ontic grounds of metaphysics with Being itself as a new kind of ultimate ontological foundation. Moreover, in many points of Heideggerian argumentation one can detect traces of a second alternative understanding of ontological difference, which does not belong in Heidegger’s intentions and undermines the primordiality of Being. This alternative understanding establishes a reciprocity between Being and beings. In our view, political difference not only is based in this second way of understanding but, at the same time, develops more decisively the mutual interdependence between Being and beings. In political difference the grounding part, namely the political, possesses both a grounding as well as a derivative character. Politics and political ground and dislocate each other in an incessant and oscillating historical procedure, which undermines any form of completion of the social.
Authors and Affiliations
Christoforos Efthimiou
Keywords
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- EP ID EP671752
- DOI 10.12681/cjp.18863
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